Internal EA study finds sharp decline in water quality at top-rated beaches outside testing period
Bathing water quality at some of England’s highest-rated beaches declines sharply during the autumn and winter months when official swimming spots are usually unmonitored, according to an unpublished Environment Agency (EA) study completed earlier this year.
Read the full story on Unearthed.
The findings will cause concern among the UK’s many fans of cold-water swimming, which has surged in popularity in recent years because of its reported health benefits.
In response to the cold-water swimming trend, the Environment Agency ran a trial last winter at six West Country beaches – all currently rated ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ – to test the sampling over the colder months. Under the current regime, they are given a rating of ‘excellent’, ‘good’, ‘sufficient’ or ‘poor’ based on monitoring between mid-May and late September.
The area’s water company, South West Water, has made a commitment in its 2022-2025 plan to “maintain our excellent bathing water quality standards, all year round”.
The study found that between October and March there were much higher levels of E coli and Intestinal Enterococci at half of the beaches in the trial. These are bacteria found in human and animal faeces that can cause serious gastrointestinal illness.
In response to the study’s findings, Greenpeace UK’s Chief Scientist, Dr Doug Parr, said:
“This shows how the health of the environment and our own bodies are linked. Wild swimming and its health benefits must not become unavailable due to the UK’s terrible water pollution. We need the Environment Agency to implement year-round testing for bacteria levels and other pollutants from farmland and our negligent water companies. That would allow wild swimmers to avoid these risks. And it would give us data which we can use to help protect the wildlife that doesn’t have a choice of when and where to swim.”
On two beaches – Summerleaze in Bude, Cornwall, and Firestone Bay in Plymouth, South Devon – the water quality dropped from ‘excellent’ to ‘sufficient’ during the winter months; on a third – Exmouth, a Blue-Flag beach in South Devon – it fell from ‘excellent’ to ‘poor’, the worst rating available for a designated bathing water site, and below the minimum acceptable standard. By contrast, at two other beaches in the study the water quality remained excellent throughout the winter months, while at Lyme Regis, in Dorset, it improved from ‘good’ to ‘excellent’.
The report’s findings indicated that the rise in bacteria levels at some beaches could be linked to wetter weather. Heavy rainfall can increase runoff from farmland and trigger sewage releases from overflow pipes, used by water companies to reduce pressure on the sewer system.
A major academic study on the popularity of cold-water swimming, released in August, concluded that more support – including winter testing – was needed to make wild bathing sites safer for women. Lead author Professor Joyce Harper, from University College London, told journalists at the time that the increased risk of gastroenteritis and other infections from polluted UK waters could “be avoidable with better monitoring of sites”.
